Category: Technology Author : Duncan Riley Posted: December 26, 2008
Tags : copyright, pirate party, sweden
The Swedish Pirate Party, the party set up to tackle copyright reform in Sweden has scored 21% in a nationwide poll.
As TorrentFreak points out, the figures are even more remarkable among men aged 18-29, where The Pirate Party polls a staggering 55%. If an election was to take place today, The Pirate Party would poll higher than the Greens, resulting in over 19 seats in the Swedish Parliament.
The Party, founded in 2006 aims to reform copyright laws, not abolish them. Their platform includes all non-commercial copying and use being completely free, and the encouragement of file sharing and p2p networking. They don’t however believe that copyright should be abolished, instead reformed so that copyright remains in place for a maximum of 5 years, as opposed to the death plus 70 years as is usually the case today.
Pirate Party’s have been setup or are currently being setup throughout the world. Here’s the links for the United States, United Kingdom (currently offline), and Australia if you’re interested in joining.
Dec 26, 2008
Just a clarification. This article misrepresents the actual poll results.
We didn't get an actual 21% of people who said outright they would vote for us.
The actual numbers: 7% of Swedish voters would “absolutely consider” voting for us in the European parliamentary elections, and 14% said they “might consider” voting for us in said elections.
We're happy about the results, but we have enough grounding in reality that we don't expect 21% of the votes in the Europarl, even in our wildest dreams.
Per von Zweigbergk
Swedish Pirate Party